Food products in general (ICS code(s): 67.040)

Protection of Public Health (Food) (Labelling of pre-packaged food that causes allergy or intolerance), 5783-2022; (10 page(s), in Hebrew)

New proposed regulations published by the Ministry of Health named "Protection of Public Health (Food) (Labelling of pre-packaged food that causes allergy or intolerance), 5782-2023".

This draft adopts the European method of labeling food allergens as required by "Protection of Public Health Law (Food) 5775-2015" and by "Israel's Economic Policy Law (Legislation Amendments for the Implementation of the Economic Policy for Budget years 2021 and 2022), 5781-2021" (notified in G/TBT/N/ISR/1218).

The proposed regulations distinguish between the marking of the presence of an allergen in the final product, which originates from the intentional addition of an allergenic component during the food production, and the presence of an allergen in the final product which is not intentional and which originates from cross-contamination at any stage of the production chain, including raw material, transportation, storage, manufacturing, packaging, etc. The distinction between these two situations is expressed in the location of the marking on the label, so that an intentional addition will be expressed in a bold mandatory marking of the allergenic component within and as part of the list of ingredients, while the unintentional presence of an allergen will be marked separately from the list of ingredients and next to it and indicated by the words "may contain".

In addition, it is proposed that these draft regulations will apply to food that causes allergies and also to food that causes intolerance, as customary in most developed countries.

It is proposed that in the first stage, the regulations will apply to pre-packaged food only, including raw materials that arrive packaged to catering businesses. These regulations will also affect the gluten labeling regulations, which will be notified separately.